Week 9 reflection

A very strange week, all against me !! but finally done !!

This week I was lost between connection, exam correction and George absence but finally the work is done and I finished all tasks of the week.



This week's issue was learning styles and their implications for teaching. The main reading was an article entitled "learning styles and strategies" by Richard Fedler http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/ILSdir/styles.htm. In this article, the author discusses the different types of learners and how learners of each type could help themselves. In this article, the author made us explore 4 pairs of learning styles which are active vs reflective, sensing vs intuitive, visual vs verbal and finally sequential vs global.

I also read about styles implication for teaching in Montgomery and Groat article ' students learning styles and their implication for teaching' where the authors discuss the reasons of incorporating learning styles in our teaching giving examples and evidence in each case. http://www.crlt.umich.edu/sites/default/files/resource_files/CRLT_no10.pdf

These articles and this week's discussion took me to another article about a serious issue which is whether learning styles are valid or not ? The article is entitled are learning styles invalid? http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/Papers/LS_Validity%28On-Course%29.pdf
Here the author raises the issue of whether students who have the same learning style has same reactions and same quality of work by  discussing this main question "Do students with different assessed learning styles respond differently to specific forms of instruction? Are the differences consistent with the learning styles model upon which the assessment was based? 

Another article  that I find worth reading and I highly recommend is Jenna P. Carpenter's iarticle entitled: "Using Learning Styles to Improve Student Learning " http://sections.maa.org/lams/proceedings/spring2004/JennaCarpenter.pdf

In this article learning styles are classified into 5 dimensions according to the learning process or learning purposes.

- processing (active/reflective)
- perception (sensory/ intuitive)
-input (visual/verbal)
- understanding (sequential/global)
- organization (inductive/deductive)





Another link that I really appreciated this week is the link to the quiz of what is your learning style? Trying the quiz made me discover myself as a new person because I discovered things that I have never thought about. Teachers can explore their learning styles and be aware of theirs before asking or trying to think about styles of their learners as well as they can make the quiz as a part of an online activity in a blog or web-quest or virtual class to explore types of learners he/she has. http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-learning-styles-quiz

Concerning the project, it passed all in bad circumstances. It was written in hurry, then no connection and finally no peer feedback but at the end, Annusha solved the problem and corrected it for me. The experience of the web-skills course has taught us lot not only web-skills but collaboration and interaction skills as well. My students are still revising their essays on Google docs, posting on the class Padlet and sending feedback to each other. As beginning and first experience for me and them, I can say that it is enough satisfactory and successful. I am still waiting to correct final results and see the difference and their improvement.

The best thing I gained from this course is an amazing teacher and nice classmates;

 

Warda, Algeria